Copyright for Research & Publishing

Research student wearing protective eye goggles, working with laser machinery

Whether you are a student or academic, there are a range of copyright aspects to consider throughout your research project - from the access and use of resources, to publishing and selecting an open access licence.

Observing copyright requirements at each stage ensures good governance practices and supports academic integrity principles.

The Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research also recommends including copyright in the planning stage of a research project, among other considerations.

Further resources
Copyright Induction Course All staff should complete this course as part of the induction process
Copyright for Higher-Degree by Research (HDR) Course HDR students can earn two CaRST points upon completion

  • Copyright ownership

    Students

    The Intellectual Property Policy provides that students retain the IP – including copyright – created during their studies in most circumstances. This includes research outputs such as theses.

    However, there are circumstances where the University or another third party may assert ownership over student-created IP. For example, where a work output:

    • Builds on pre-existing University IP, or
    • Is in conjunction with an external third party, such as a lead co-author, Co-operative Research Centre or company.

    These predominantly relate to the IP in research outputs that have significant commercialisation potential, such as for inventions, software or plant varieties. See the Adelaide Graduate Research School’s Intellectual Property and Embargo page for more information. 

    Staff

    Under the Intellectual Property Policy, University staff members retain copyright in ‘scholarly and creative works’ such as books, journal articles, conference papers, and artistic works. This does not include copyright in teaching materials, which is usually retained by the University.  

    For works of joint ownership, the corresponding (or lead) author is typically authorised to sign publishing agreements and grant permissions on behalf of the other authors. This can be formalised through a co-author agreement.  

    Where a University of Adelaide member is the corresponding or sole author, Research Services also require an Authorship Declaration to be completed for research publications. 

Research

  • Using Open Educational Resources (OERs)

    OERs – including open access publications - consist of materials that are in the public domain or have been released under a Creative Commons or other open licence that permits some degree of use without purchase or permission. OER materials include textbooks, journals, courseware, software, datasets, images, music and video, among others.

    The Copyright Compliance Policy prioritises the use of OERs for University activities wherever possible. OERs are preferred for research projects as there are no limitations on copying them and they generally don’t require permission for re-use in a publication.

    See the OER How Do I guide for information on how to find OERs by discipline and format.

  • Using licenced material

    The University Library has commercial licences in place with over 120 vendors to provide staff and students with resources such as journals, data, ebooks, news, guides, audio, and video recordings.  

    While there are distinct licence terms for each resource, they typically permit users to access (view) and copy (download), albeit sometimes with certain limits. Some vendors also permit text and data mining (TDM). 

    General terms for a particular vendor can usually be found at the bottom of their webpage under ‘Copyright’ or ‘Terms and Conditions’ after clicking through from Library Search results or from the Library Database list. However, these may differ from the actual licence agreement with the University. In addition, a specific item may have a Creative Commons or other licence attached to it that overrides the licence agreement terms.   

  • Research or study exception

    If there is no licence applicable, the fair dealing exception for research or study permits copying of a reasonable portion of a work, generally up to:

    • 10% of the words or pages; 
    • 1 chapter or article; or 
    • Multiple articles from the same periodical (newspaper, magazine, journal) if it's for the same study. 

    If copying more than a reasonable portion, or copying other types of materials such as an artistic work, sound recording, film or broadcast, the following fairness factors must be considered, in aggregate:

    • Purpose of the copying (eg research or study); 
    • The nature of the work; 
    • Commercial availability of the work;
    • Effect of copying on the market for the work; and 
    • Amount and substantiality of the part used. 

    The exception covers personal and informal study but does not extend to publishing research. 

  • Using datasets

    Copyright subsistence generally requires some degree of human creative endeavour. As such, datasets of raw data tend not to attract copyright, while those that have been processed or compiled in some way may. For example, a spreadsheet of raw figures logged directly from a weather station would likely not be protected by copyright until that data had been cleaned or arranged in some way using the requisite skill and judgment.

    To reduce uncertainty, it's increasingly common for public datasets to be shared under licence terms that clearly state how it can be used. For instance, the University of Adelaide's Research Data and Primary Materials Policy requires research data to be released under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 licence where possible.  


Publishing

  • Publishing agreements

    Agreement types

    Publishers generally require either assignment of all copyright or a licence to certain rights to proceed with publishing. 

    Publishing agreements can be categorised as shown in the table below. Note that assignment of copyright and exclusive licences are similar in that the author retains very limited rights to the work. Conversely, open licences (such as Creative Commons) are effectively a type of non-exclusive licence but offered to everyone. An open licence may also be combined with one of the other agreement types.

      Assignment Exclusive licence Non-exclusive licence Open licence
    Description Transfers copyright to a new owner Grants rights solely to another party The same rights can be granted to multiple parties Blanket grant of rights to everyone
    Copyright Owner Publisher Author Author Usually the author
    Can you use your own work without permission? No No Yes Yes
    Can others use your work without permission? No No Yes, within limits Yes, within limits
    Authority to grant permission Publisher (or delegate) Publisher (or delegate) Author Usually the author

    Publishing tips

    Key considerations for authors in relation to publishing include:

    Avoid copyright assignment or exclusive licensing Not retaining the rights means you will have to go back to the publisher for permission to reuse or quote from your own work. Agreements should at least include a licence back to the author in these circumstances.
    Publish open access

    Open access (OA) ensures wider distribution as researchers and institutions don’t have to pay to read or use the work.

    The University Open Access Policy requires research outputs to be publicly available in the AR&S repository or an equivalent. 

    See the Publishing Open Access page for more information.

    Include an addendum to retain certain rights

    The University Open Access Policy and research funder policies may require that authors retain certain rights.  See Publishing Open Access for more information.

    For non-open access journals, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) provides an addendum template  that helps to select which rights to retain. 
    Avoid author processing charges (APCs)

    The Directory of Open Access Journals. (DOAJ) can filter out titles with APC fees.

    Further, the University’s Read & Publish Agreements negate APC fees with certain publishers as they are effectively covered by Library subscription fees.
    Avoid unnecessary embargo periods Publisher embargoes prevent the work from being made OA for a certain duration. See Grant Funding and Open Access for more information.
    Ensure rights reversion if not accepted Where an agreement is required upon submission, all rights should revert back to the author if the article is rejected.
    Use a co-author agreement For works of joint authorship, formally designate the corresponding author and their rights and responsibilities over contributing authors to avoid any future uncertainties.

     

  • Processing copyright clearances

    It is good practice to assess the potential for copyright clearance for each third-party material before it is included in a project. While clearances for journal articles are usually straightforward, other materials can be challenging where there are multiple, distinct rightsholders or if it's of commercial value. Note that inclusion of material from your own publications may still require clearance if it was co-authored or if it was assigned or exclusively licensed to a publisher through a publishing agreement. 

    For HDR students, theses are added to the Adelaide Research & Scholarship repository as part of the final thesis lodgement process. Any third party materials included in the thesis should be declared on the Final Thesis Lodgement form and copyright clearance for each item indicated on the Third Party Copyright Clearance Form, including documentation of any permissions or licences acquired.

    The Third Party Copyright Clearance Form is also useful for tracking copyright clearances for publication purposes.

    The below outlines some of the typical clearance methods. 

    Copyright durations can be broadly summarised as follows, however there are numerous exceptions depending on the type of material and other factors, such as the publication date.

    In 2004 the Australia-US free trade agreement introduced transition measures to expire the copyright in certain items when the copyright terms were extended from 50 to 70 years. As a result, copyright in Australia has expired for:

    • Most literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works if the author died before 1955.
    • Photographs and sound recordings made before 1955. 

     See the Copyright Durations page for specific durations by material type. 

    Open Educational Resources (OERs)

    As stated above, OERs and open access publications consist of materials that are in the public domain or have been released under a Creative Commons (CC) or other open licence that permits some degree of free use without purchase or permission.

    It is worth checking the fine print on OER licences to ensure that all conditions are met for the licence to apply. For instance, all CC licences mandate attribution, while CC-SA also requires that material can only be re-used if it is distributed under the same CC-SA licence, which may be prohibitive for certain publishers.  

    Referenced, Linked or Embedded Material

    Consider referencing or citing a resource if it isn’t critical to include a reproduction or excerpt. For online materials, linking or embedding content means the source website is serving up the material rather than having to reproduce it locally. Embedding should only be employed if the third party site expressly permits it. YouTube, for example, provides specific HTML embed code to enable videos to be served elsewhere. 

    Further, the content should only be linked or embedded from an official source or channel to avoid liability for authorisation infringement as well as reputational risk. For example, links to videos on the official National Geographic YouTube channel would be acceptable, but links to unofficial sources that have no clear affiliation with the rightsholder should be omitted. Official YouTube channels can usually be identified through the tick symbol after the account name. 

    Permissions

    Obtaining permission is perhaps the most common and reliable method of copyright clearance.

    For most journal articles as well as many textbooks, permissions can be requested through the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) Rightslink Marketplace. Online journal articles often have a rights or permissions tab near the heading that will link through to Rightslink and include the correct citation.

    Alternatively, permissions may need to be obtained from rightsholder(s) directly. The © copyright notice should identify the primary rightsholder, but if it's not clear, try the publisher or author first. Publishers often have a permissions and licensing contact point on their website.

    While some rightsholders might require a more formal request including full details of the intended publication, the wording below should be sufficient for email requests in most circumstances:

    Can you kindly grant permission for a worldwide, perpetual, non-exclusive licence to copy and communicate the following item for the purpose of publishing a thesis in the University of Adelaide institutional repository / journal article / textbook / website.

    • [citation and/or link to item] 
    • [actual text, page numbers or screenshot of extract used.] 

    The work will be cited and referenced in line with University referencing guides. 

    Regards
    [name]
    [institution]

    Performance releases

    Performers hold certain rights in sound recordings and audiovisual (film) recordings of their performances, including the right to grant or refuse consent to the reproduction and communication of a performance (since 1989); co-ownership of copyright in a sound recording of a performance (2005); and moral rights (2007). The rights to control the use of a performance generally last for 50 years for sound recordings and 20 years for audiovisual recordings.

    Performances include dramatic, literary, musical and variety acts, as well as interviews and speeches. 

    To avoid any uncertainty, its good practice to obtain releases from performers when making a recording. Alternatively, permission clearances may be required from performers in relation to third party recordings or recordings that don’t have suitable releases in place.

    The University has a template Talent Release form that can be used for this purpose. Note that this form designates the performer’s rights to the University.

    Indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP)

    Not just confined to copyright aspects, ICIP protocols guide the use of Indigenous cultural material, with a particular emphasis on early and ongoing consultation with and consent from the relevant communities.

    See the Indigenous Research page for more information.  

    Fair dealing for criticism or review

    There must be sufficient commentary or analysis about the third-party material for the fair dealing for criticism or review to apply, rather than the material being included simply to illustrate a point or for comparison.

    As with other fair dealing exceptions it is permitted to use a ‘reasonable portion’ of third party literary material, generally up to:

    • 10% of the words or pages;
    • 1 chapter or article; or 
    • 2 or more chapters if from the same periodical publication.

    If using more than a reasonable portion, or using other types of materials such as an artistic work, sound recording, film or broadcast, the following fairness factors must be considered, in aggregate:

    • Purpose of the copying (eg criticism or review). 
    • The nature of the work. 
    • Commercial availability of the work. 
    • The effect of copying on the market for the work. 
    • Amount and substantiality of the part used.

    Musical Works in Theses

    The University has a Music Licence with APRA-AMCOS, ARIA and PPCA.

    In addition to onsite perfomances, the licence permits audio and unedited video recordings of University musical performances (including commercially released works) to be streamed on the University website, such as the Adelaide Research & Scholarship repository for theses.

    For commercially released works, the work must be represented in the APRA-AMCOS catalogue for the licence to apply. For works not represented by APRA-AMCOS, such as an original composition by a student, permissions should be sought from the rightsholders for the musical work (composition) and the sound recording, if necessary.

    See the Copyright Collecting Society Licences page for specific details. 

    Orphan works

    An item might be considered an orphan work if the rightsholder genuinely cannot be identified or located in order to obtain permission, or to determine its copyright status. Many publishers won’t accept manuscripts containing third party material that aren’t suitably cleared, while others might proceed with publication after completing a risk assessment. Contact the Copyright & Licensing Coordinator for assistance on clearing orphan works.  

  • Choosing an Open Access Licence

    Visit Open Access Publishing for information on selecting the most appropriate OA licence for your project. 

Contact the Copyright Coordinator